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Film Friday: Superbad Invasion
They’re trying to hypnotise us, people. They’re trying to brainwash us and subdue us by bombarding the television with adverts and by using the media to confuse us, and they’ll never stop… Until Superbad is the number one movie this weekend.
Stupid movie executives. We were totally stoked for Superbad until they started a non-stop marketing frenzy that made us completely bored and, frankly, offended. John Harkness at Now is similarly unimpressed: “The weirdest thing about Superbad is the marketing. It was on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, but the article inside … positioned the film as a summer sleeper that could sneak its way to big numbers. Little sleeper pictures don’t get the cover of Entertainment Weekly before they open.”
He did love the film, though, as did The Star‘s Geoff Pevere and The Sun‘s Kevin Williamson (“Superbad is super-awesome“). And considering that it stars (Brampton-based!) Michael Cera, excellent in Arrested Development and the internet-only Clark and Michael (if you haven’t seen it yet, avoid the site for a few weeks until it gets rid of the obnoxious Superbad branding), we’re not surprised it’s getting a good response. However, it’s totally a film that the studio could have marketed in a cheaper, cleverer, less obvious and annoying way.
A similar tale of the ways in which movie executives are morons can be seen in The Invasion, the umpteenth remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (they’re saying it’s got too different a story to be a remake, but whatever). Jonathan Goldsbie checked it out, and here’s what he has to say:
“The Invasion sucks in all of the obvious and predictable ways, but also in some totally unexpected, forehead-slapping ways. The TV news reports in the film, for example, show the alien takeover resulting in a ceasefire in Darfur, with refugees joyously returning from Chad; another shows Bush and Hugo Chavez shaking hands. The original cut delivered by director Oliver Hirschbiegel (The Downfall) was reportedly rejected by Warner Bros. for being too dark, and they hired the Wachowski brothers to do rewrites and James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) to do reshoots. The “fixes” are evident; the film plays like its own trailer mashup. Sometimes it wants to be serious and contemporary, and other times it’s quite content as a throwback to 1950s schlock. I kept wishing I had 3D glasses.”
Also on release this week: Rocket Science, Gypsy Caravan, The Last Legion and El Cantante. If you think we were rude about Viggo Mortensen recently, you should read what Now‘s Glenn Sumi said about Marc Anthony. Way worse!